Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes

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Hock Seng doesn't pause to ask any more. He turns and runs, as fast as his old bones will carry him. Cursing himself all the way. Cursing that he was a fool and didn't put his nose to the wind, that he let himself be distracted from bare survival by the urgent wish to do something more, to reach ahead.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Hock Seng doesn't pause to
I didn't think of myself as writing 'cli-fi,' but I'll take the label. I'll take any label that makes someone think they might be interested in my stories.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: I didn't think of myself
It was one of those things everyone had an opinion about - that it was what you had when you didn't have anything else, that family was always there, that blood was thicker than water, whatever. But when Nailer thought about it, most of those words and ideas just seemed like good excuses for people to behave badly and think they could get away with it. Family wasn't any more reliable than marriages or friendships or blood-sworn crew, and maybe less.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: It was one of those
The marketplace tells us that good, visceral storytelling has a place. But there are lots of questions about the format that stories take.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: The marketplace tells us that
There were stories in sweat.

The sweat of a woman bend double in an onion field, working fourteen hours under the hot sun, was different from the sweat of a man as he approached a checkpoint in Mexico, praying to La Santa Muerte that the federales weren't on the payroll of the enemies he was fleeing...
Sweat was a body's history, compressed into jewels, beaded on the brow, staining shirts with salt. It told you everything about how a person had ended up in the right place at the wrong time, and whether they would survive another day.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: There were stories in sweat.<br
Back home, we can't kill them fast enough," he says. "Even Grahamites offer blue bills for their skins. Probably the only thing they've ever done that I agreed with."

"Mmm, yes." Emiko's brow wrinkles thoughtfully. "They are too much improved for this world, I think. A natural bird has so little chance, now." She smiles slightly. "Just think if they had made New People first."

Is it mischief in her eyes? Or melancholy?

"What do you think would have happened?" Anderson asks.

Emiko doesn't meet his gaze, looks out instead at the circling cats amongst the diners. "Generippers learned too much from cheshires."

She doesn't say anything else, but Anderson can guess what's in her mind. If her kind had come first, before the generippers knew better, she would not have been made sterile. She would not have the signature tick-tock motions that make her so physically obvious. She might have even been designed as well as the military windups now operating in Vietnam - deadly and fearless. Without the lesson of the cheshires, Emiko might have had the opportunity to supplant the human species entirely with her own improved version. Instead, she is a genetic dead end. Doomed to a single life cycle, just like SoyPRO and TotalNutrient Wheat.

Another shadow cat bolts across the street, shimmering and shading through darkness. A high-tech homage to Lewis Carroll, a few dirigible and clipper ship rides, and suddenly entire classes
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Back home, we can't kill
The surfeit of bad trends pushes me to set my stories in worlds which are often diminished versions of our own present.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: The surfeit of bad trends
They'd blame a castoff just for breathing. You could be good as gold and they'd still blame you.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: They'd blame a castoff just
Don't tell me about worth," Nita said. "My father commands fleets."
"The wealthy measure everything with the weight of their money." Tool leaned close. "Sadna once risked herself and the rest of her crew to help me escape from an oil fire ... Your father commands fleets. And thousands of half-men, I am sure. But would he risk himself to save a single one?
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Don't tell me about worth,
It's the first rule of bureaucracy: any message worth sending is worth sending in triplicate.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: It's the first rule of
Anderson has spent enough time poring over ancient pictures that they seldom affect him. He can usually ignore the foolish confidence of the past - the waste, the arrogance, the absurd wealth - but this one irritates him: the fat flesh hanging off the farang, the astonishing abundance of calories that are so obviously secondary to the color and attractiveness of a market that has thirty varieties of fruit: mangosteens, pineapples, coconuts, certainly. . . but there are no oranges, now. None of these. . . these. . . dragon fruits, none of these pomelos, none of these yellow things. . . lemons. None of them. So many of these things are simply gone.

But the people in the photo don't know it. These dead men and women have no idea that they stand in front of the treasure of the ages, that they inhabit the Eden of the Grahamite Bible where pure souls go to live at the right hand of God. Where all the flavors of the world reside under the careful attentions of Noah and Saint Francis, and where no one starves.

Anderson scans the caption. The fat, self-contented fools have no idea of the genetic gold mine they stand beside. The book doesn't even bother to identify the ngaw. It's just another example of nature's fecundity, taken entirely for granted because they enjoyed so damn much of it.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Anderson has spent enough time
Science fiction has these obsessions with certain sciences - large scale engineering, neuroscience.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Science fiction has these obsessions
Water sluices away soap and grime, even some of the shame comes with it. If she were to scrub for a thousand years she would not be clean, but she is too tired to care and she has grown accustomed to scars she cannot scour away. The sweat, the alcohol, the humid salt of semen and degradation, these she can cleanse. It is enough. She is too tired to scrub harder. Too hot and too tired, always.
At the end of her rinsing, she is happy to find a little water left in the bucket. She dips one ladleful and drinks it, gulping. And then in a wasteful, unrestrained gesture, she upends the bucket over her head in one glorious cathartic rush. In that moment, between the touch of the water, and the splash as it pools around her toes, she is clean.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Water sluices away soap and
We write dust epitaphs for our vanquished enemies and watch them blow away in the desert wind.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: We write dust epitaphs for
I am bought, she thinks. I am paid for. I am bought.

When she first arrived at the Environment Ministry as Akkarat's mole, it was a surprise to discover that the little privileges of the Environment Ministry were always enough. The weekly take from street stalls to burn something other than expensive approved-source methane. The pleasure of a night patrol spent sleeping well. It was an easy existence. Even under Jaidee, it was easy. And now by ill-luck she must work, and the work is important, and she has had two masters for so long that she cannot remember which one should be ascendant.

Someone else should have replaced you, Jaidee. Someone worthy. The Kingdom falls because we are not strong. We are not virtuous, we do not follow the eightfold path and now the sicknesses come again.

And she is the one who must stand against them, like Phra Seub - but without the strength or moral compass.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: I am bought, she thinks.
What I'm hoping to do though is to ground my extrapolations in specificity, and to make sure that the story I tell is deliberately and honestly told.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: What I'm hoping to do
I do not fight battles that cannot be won. Do not confuse that with cowardice.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: I do not fight battles
Despite everything, he failed to understand the capriciousness of warfare. In his arrogance he thought he could prepare. Such a fool...
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Despite everything, he failed to
I hate your kind."

"Because someone like me made you?" He laughs again. "I'm surprised you aren't more pleased to meet me. You're as close as anyone ever comes to meeting God. Come now, don't you have any questions for God?"

Emiko scowls at him, nods at the cheshires. "If you were my God, you would have made New People first."

The old gaijin laughs. "That would have been exciting."

"We would have beaten you. Just like the cheshires."

"You may yet." He shrugs. "You do not fear cibiscosis or blister rust."

"No." Emiko shakes her head. "We cannot breed. We depend on you for that." She moves her hand. Telltale stutter-stop motion. "I am marked. Always, we are marked. As obvious as a ten-hands or a megodont."

He waves a hand dismissively. "The windup movement is not a required trait. There is no reason it couldn't be removed. Sterility. . ." He shrugs. "Limitations can be stripped away. The safeties are there because of lessons learned, but they are not required; some of them even make it more difficult to create you. Nothing about you is inevitable." He smiles. "Someday, perhaps, all people will be New People and you will look back on us as we now look back at the poor Neanderthals."

Emiko falls silent. The fire crackles. Finally she says, "You know how to do this? Can make me breed true, like the cheshires?"

The old man exchanges a glance with his ladyboy.

"Can you do it
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: I hate your kind.
Economies are embedded inside ecosystems. Companies dependent on tourism, for example, are affected by low rainfall - there's less snow for skiers, and forest fires are more intense.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Economies are embedded inside ecosystems.
There were stories in sweat.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: There were stories in sweat.
Soldiers have been looting and burning for generations. Perhaps they burned the town because of you, or perhaps they did it because they disliked the whiskey. Soldiers kill and rape and loot for a thousand reasons. The one thing I am certain of is that neither you nor I did this burning." Tool reached down and turned Mahlia's gaze to meet his own. "Do not seek to own what others have done.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Soldiers have been looting and
She'd been so busy worrying about soldier boys and villagers she'd forgotten the jungle had hunters of its own, and now she was going to die for it.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: She'd been so busy worrying
Lately, he'd been looking at Starbucks baristas and wishing he had their jobs. Tall, grande, latte, cappuccino, skinny, whatever. Not much complexity there. And when you left work at the end of the day you didn't have to think about a fucking thing. Who cared if they made shit for money? At least they wouldn't have to pay much in tax.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Lately, he'd been looking at
Most of the news about the state of the environment is pretty ugly. This is frightening for me personally, but actually motivational for me artistically.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Most of the news about
Save your shaming for the girl, Doctor. If I cared for human approval, I would have been dead long ago." He turned and started wading into the swamp. "Time is passing. I, for one, have no intention of remaining here for your betrayer to bring back the soldiers and their guns.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Save your shaming for the
Pure data. You don't believe data - you test data." He grimaced. "If I could put my finger on the moment we genuinely fucked ourselves, it was the moment we decided that data was something you could use words like believe or disbelieve around.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Pure data. You don't believe
She was too smart for his own good.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: She was too smart for
...the thing he said that stuck with me was that people are alone here in America. They're all alone. And they don't trust anyone except themselves, and they don't rely on anyone except themselves. He said that was why he thought India would survive all this apocalyptic shit, but America wouldn't. Because here, no knew their neighbors.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: ...the thing he said that
Maggot twitch, some people called it. If you'd seen much of the war, you had it. Some more. Some less. But everybody had it.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Maggot twitch, some people called
There were times when he'd told her that every star was a bit of gold that was hers for the taking, because she was Chinese and with hard work and attendance to her ancestiors and traditions, she would prosper. And now, here they were under a blanket of gold dust, the Milky Way spread over them like some great shifting blanket, the stars so thick that if he were tall enough he could reach up and squeeze them and have them run down his arms.
Gold, all around, and all of it untouchable.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: There were times when he'd
I like fast plots with things that explode.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: I like fast plots with
Hell, we're all bullet bait sooner or later. Doubt it makes much difference. You make it to sixteen, you're a goddamn legend.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Hell, we're all bullet bait
I'm interested in how we react when we're heavily pressed. When we're vulnerable and our survival is in question, how do we behave?
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: I'm interested in how we
Plenty of people say my guesses about a future drought in the western U.S. (where I live and grew up) are wrong, so I don't see why I won't be wrong in some people's eyes when I go set a story on foreign shores.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Plenty of people say my
As a writer, you should care about reluctant readers. You want these kids to feel like books are amazing and cool and that they're an escape.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: As a writer, you should
If I could put my finger on the moment we genuinely fucked ourselves, it was the moment we decided that data was something you could use words like believe or disbelieve around." He
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: If I could put my
Tool wondered if the girl was going mad. It happened to people. Sometimes they saw too much and their minds went away. They lost the will to survive. They curled up and surrendered to madness.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Tool wondered if the girl
I started really thinking a lot about where does a country go when we stop being able to speak to each other, when a nation stops being able to solve problems because its ideological differences become so deep that it just becomes dysfunctional.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: I started really thinking a
I don't know why we choose to reach out to help another person, or why we decide that we can't, and withdraw and try to care only for ourselves, but I'm fascinated by that choice.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: I don't know why we
How many of us are dead because of their potential unleashed? Your calorie masters showed us what happens. People die."

"Everyone dies." The doctor waves a dismissal. "But you die now because you cling to the past. We should all be windups by now. It's easier to build a person impervious to blister rust than to protect an earlier version of the human creature. A generation from now, we could be well-suited for our new environment. Your children could be the beneficiaries. Yet you people refuse to adapt. You cling to some idea of a humanity that evolved in concert with your environment over millennia, and which you now, perversely, refuse to remain in lockstep with.

"Blister rust is our environment. Cibiscosis. Genehack weevil. Cheshires. They have adapted. Quibble as you like about whether they evolved naturally or not. Our environment has changed. If we wish to remain at the top of our food chain, we will evolve. Or we will refuse, and go the way of the dinosaurs and Felis domesticus. Evolve or die. It has always been nature's guiding principle, and yet you white shirts seek to stand in the way of inevitable change." He leans forward. "I want to shake you sometimes. If you would just let me, I could be your god and shape you to the Eden that beckons us."

"I'm Buddhist."

"And we all know windups have no souls." Gibbons grins. "No rebirth for them. They will have to find their own gods to protect them. Their own gods to pray for thei
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: How many of us are
A rush of primal satisfaction flooded Tool as his opponent surrendered to death. Blackness swamped Tool's vision, and he let go.

He had conquered.

Even as he died, he conquered.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: A rush of primal satisfaction
At some point, you realize you can't provide a perfectly monolithic description of a foreign culture's future any more than you can provide a monolithic description of your own hometown's future. Your choices about what to emphasize and what to leave out make all the difference, and ultimately, your fingerprints and biases and viewpoints are going to be all over the story.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: At some point, you realize
Men are loyal when you lead from the front.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Men are loyal when you
Death is not defeat, Tool told himself. We all die. Every one of us. Rip and Blade and Fear and all the rest. We all die. So what if you are the last? You were designed to be destroyed.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Death is not defeat, Tool
We rest in the hands of a fickle god. He plays on our behalf only for entertainment, and he will close his eyes and sleep if we fail to engage his intellect.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: We rest in the hands
Businesses that decide to be reality based and identify where they're vulnerable to climate impact, that start thinking about how to buffer against it, are going to be able to take advantage of shortages. When the water runs out, not everyone is in the same pickle.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Businesses that decide to be
Kanya looks away. "You deserve it. It's your kamma. Your death will be painful."

"Karma? Did you say karma?" The doctor leans closer, brown eyes rolling, tongue lolling. "And what sort of karma is it that ties your entire country to me, to my rotting broken body? What sort of karma is it that behooves you to keep me, of all people, alive?" He grins. "I think a great deal about your karma. Perhaps it's your pride, your hubris that is being repaid, that forces you to lap seedstock from my hand. Or perhaps you're the vehicle of my enlightenment and salvation. Who knows? Perhaps I'll be reborn at the right hand of Buddha thanks to the kindnesses I do for you."

"That's not the way it works."

The doctor shrugs. "I don't care. Just give me another like Kip to fuck. Throw me another of your sickened lost souls. Throw me a windup. I don't care. I'll take what flesh you throw me. Just don't bother me. I'm beyond worrying about your rotting country now."

He tosses the papers into the pool. They scatter across the water. Kanya gasps, horrified, and nearly lunges after them before steeling herself and forcing herself to draw back. She will not allow Gibbons to bait her. This is the way of the calorie man. Always manipulating. Always testing. She forces herself to look away from the parchment slowly soaking in the pool and turn her eyes to him.

Gibbons smiles slightly. "Well? Are you going to swim for them or not?" He nods at Kip. "My
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Kanya looks away.
A gamble. Everything was a damn gamble. Betting against luck and the Fates, again and again, and again. She kept walking, waiting for the bullet.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: A gamble. Everything was a
You must go ask Gi Bu Sen for advice. He is the only one who knows what sort of monster we face. These are his children, coming to torment us. He will recognize them. I'm having the new samples prepared. Between the three, he will know. "

"There's no other way?"

"Our only other choice is to begin quarantining the city, and then the riots will begin and there will be nothing left to save.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: You must go ask Gi
There's a theory that if we don't have the right words in our vocabularies, we can't even see the things that are right in front of our faces. If we can't describe our reality accurately, we can't see it. Not the other way around.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: There's a theory that if
We're not in Khlong Prem Prison yet. So let's assume we're winning.
But inwardly, Anderson wonders. There are too many variables in play, and it makes him nervous. He remembers a time in Missouri when the Grahamites rioted. There had been tension, some small speeches, and then it had simply erupted in field burning. No one had seen the violence coming. Not a single intelligence officer had anticipated the cauldron boiling beneath the surface.
Anderson had ended up perched atop a grain silo, choking on the smoke of HiGro fields going up in sheets of flame, firing steadily at rioters on the ground with a spring rifle he'd salvaged from a slow-moving security guard, and all the while he had wondered how everyone had missed the signs. They lost the facility because of that blindness. And now it is the same. A sudden eruption, and the surprise of realizing that the world he understands is not the one he actually inhabits.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: We're not in Khlong Prem
She is an animal. Servile as a dog. And yet if he is careful to make no demands, to leave the air between them open, another version of the windup girl emerges. As precious and rare as a living bo tree. Her soul, emerging from within the strangling strands of her engineered DNA.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: She is an animal. Servile
Jesus walked on water, so maybe he makes aquifers, too.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Jesus walked on water, so
Even our prayers are to farang, Kanya thinks. A farang antidote for a farang plague.

Take any tool you can find. Make it your own, Jaidee said in times past, explaining why they consorted with the worst. Why they bribed and stole and encouraged monsters like Gi Bu Sen.

A machete doesn't care who wields it, or who made it. Take the knife and it will cut. Take the farang if they will be a tool in your hand. And if it turns on you, melt it down. You will have at least the raw materials.

Take any tool. He was always practical.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Even our prayers are to
Nailer smiled bitterly in the acrid wind. That was what thinking about clipper ships got you. A lungful of smoke because you weren't paying attention to what was around.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Nailer smiled bitterly in the
All the definitions people want to put on you in terms of what kind of writer you are come with hidden meanings. If you're writing science fiction, you're writing rocket ships. If you write dystopian fiction, it's inequity where The Man must be fought.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: All the definitions people want
I don't care. I want that one out. We can't afford a stampede. Find some polite way to get rid of him." Anderson pulls over another stack of paychecks waiting for his signature.
Hock Seng tries again. "Khun, negotiating with the union is a complicated thing."
"That's why I have you. It's called delegating." Anderson continues flipping the papers.
"Yes, of course." Hock Seng regards him drily. "Thank you for your management instruction.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: I don't care. I want
Her whispering lips brushed his ear.
She was praying. Soft begging words to Ganesha and the Buddha, to Kali-Mary Mercy and the Christian God...she was praying to anything at all, begging the Fates to let her walk from the shadow of death. Pleas spilled from her lips, a desperate trickle. She was broken, soon to die, but still the words slipped out in a steady whisper. Tum Karuna ke saagar Tum palankarta hail Mary full of grace Ajahn Chan Bodhisattva, release me from suffering...
He drew away. Her fingers slipped from his cheek like orchid petals falling.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Her whispering lips brushed his
No one else noticed, or cared. It was just something they did. Taking other people's livestock. Other people's lives. She watched the soldiers, hating them. They were different in so many ways, white and black, yellow and brown, skinny, short, tall, small, but they were all the same. Didn't matter if they wore finger-bone necklaces, or baby teeth on bracelets, or tattoos on their chests to ward off bullets. In the end, they were all mangled with battle scars and their eyes were all dead.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: No one else noticed, or
All things are transient. Buddha says it is so, and Hock Seng, who didn't believe in or care about karma or the truths of the dharma when he was young, has come in his old age to understand his grandmother's religion and its painful truths. Suffering is his lot. Attachment is the source of his suffering. And yet he cannot stop himself from saving and preparing and striving to preserve himself in this life which has turned out so poorly.
How is it that I sinned to earn this bitter fate? Saw my clan whittled by red machetes? Saw my businesses burned and my clipper ships sunk? He closes his eyes, forcing memories away. Regret is suffering.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: All things are transient. Buddha
How do you know?" He whispered. "How do you know you can trust?"
"You can't know," she said. "That's what trust is.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: How do you know?
If you wanted to look at evil, it was just a bunch of suits and ties, a bunch of cubicles and computers, the quiet whirring of commerce. Evil wasn't anything. It was just business as usual.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: If you wanted to look
Sometimes you found a way to mesh up for a little while, maybe even spin the same direction, as he and Lucy had. Other times you couldn't find a fit. Sometimes you were the most important past in the machine.
And sometimes it turned out you were obsolete.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Sometimes you found a way
I'm particularly interested in black swan events: unprecedented surprises that destroy the conventional wisdom about how the world works.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: I'm particularly interested in black
Maybe storytelling belongs in audio - a short story is the length of a commute. That can be a sacred spot where you have the ear of the reader without having to compete with other media like games or TV.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Maybe storytelling belongs in audio
Jaidee always insisted that the Kingdom was a happy country, that old story about the Land of Smiles. But Kanya cannot think of a time when she has seen smiles as wide as those in museum photos from before the Contraction. She sometimes wonders if those people in the photos were acting, if perhaps the National Gallery is intended to depress her, or if it is really true that at one point people smiled so totally, so fearlessly.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Jaidee always insisted that the
It is beginning."
Pak Eng and Laughing Chan and Peter all look at Hock Seng with respect. "You were right."
Hock Seng nods impatiently. "I learn."
The storm is gathering. The megodonts must do battle. It is their fate. The power sharing of the last coup could never last. The beasts must clash and one will establish final dominance. Hock Seng murmurs a prayer to his ancestors that he will come out of this maelstrom alive.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: It is beginning.Pak Eng and" title="Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: It is beginning."
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I focus a little more on pacing when I write books in the young adult category, and of course there's the great American fear of anything sexual, so that's somewhat backed off in YA.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: I focus a little more
When I think about myself as a writer, for sure I am a science fiction writer. The tools of extrapolation, the tools of anticipating the future - those are science fictional questions.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: When I think about myself
Lucy felt sick, listening to him. It was a view of the world that anticipated evil from people because people always delivered. And the worst part was that she couldn't really argue.
"Like there's something in our DNA," she murmured, 'that makes us into monsters."
"Yeah. And we're all the same monsters," Angel said. "And it's just accidents that turn us one way or another, but once we turn bad, it takes a long time for us to try to be something different.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Lucy felt sick, listening to
When we talk about dystopias, especially in young adult fiction, a lot of them are essentially science fictional futures. They aren't necessarily tied to the traditional concept of dystopia. And so in that space, my impression is that kids love reading about weird, wild, adventurous places, and dystopia fits that bill.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: When we talk about dystopias,
That is the nature of our beasts and plagues. They are not dumb machines to be driven about. They have their own needs and hungers. Their own evolutionary demands. They must mutate and adapt, and so you will never be done with me, and when I am gone, what will you do then? We have released demons upon the world, and your walls are only as good as my intellect. Nature has become something new. It is ours now, truly. And if our creation devours us, how poetic will that be?
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: That is the nature of
We knew it was all going to go to hell, and we just stood by and watched it happen anyway. There ought to be a prize for that kind of stupidity.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: We knew it was all
You think you are some fine predator? A swamp panther or coywolv?" He pretended to inspect her. "Where are your teeth and claws, girl?" He bared his teeth. "Where is your bite?
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: You think you are some
There's a certain trick to ignoring her bad moods. The first time Jaidee met Kanya, he almost thought she was stupid, the way her face remained so impassive, so impervious to any hint of fun, as though she were missing an organ, a nose for smell, eyes for sight, and whatever curious organ makes a person sense sanuk when it is right in front of them.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: There's a certain trick to
Of course, the more you read, the more you learn, and ultimately there is more information than you can ever use. The difficulty is that as an outsider, you know you're too ignorant for your own good, and so the urge to keep researching and *never* start writing is pretty strong.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Of course, the more you
I know people who have gone into career death spins, and that's something you're always aware of as a writer.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: I know people who have
The young adult category is particularly interesting to me in terms of science fiction and fantasy tropes.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: The young adult category is
which general has decided to betray Pracha.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: which general has decided to
You should remember that, all of you. If you're just smart or just lucky, it's not worth a copper yard. You got to have both, or you're just like Sloth down at those bonfires, begging for someone to find a use for you.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: You should remember that, all
When we live the 21st-century good life, almost every aspect of it is predicated on not looking at the implications of what we're up to. Happiness at this point has a lot to do with not looking, so you don't feel complicit in some vast and awful enterprise.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: When we live the 21st-century
Sex and hypocrisy. They go together like coffee and cream.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Sex and hypocrisy. They go
She smiles at him, too young to know him for a stranger, and too innocent yet to care.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: She smiles at him, too
When people fight for ideals, no price is too high, and no fight can be surrendered. They aren't fighting for money, or power, or control. Not really. They're fighting to destroy their enemies.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: When people fight for ideals,
You get worked up about what's right and wrong, but that shit's only in your head. Rules are what the big dogs say they are.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: You get worked up about
If I cared for human approval, I would have been dead long ago.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: If I cared for human
I'm not proud of it, but I'm a great liar when I travel. I smile and lie, and things are smooth.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: I'm not proud of it,
Suicide is not something I owe you or yours.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Suicide is not something I
For pleasure, I'll read military sf, or Elmore Leonard capers, anything that's fast and fun. Otherwise, I mostly pick at books, without any clear focus.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: For pleasure, I'll read military
It is a precise thing, a scripted act as deliberate as Jo No Mai, each move choreographed, a worship of scarcity.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: It is a precise thing,
When I read, I'm either reading to learn, or I'm reading to switch off.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: When I read, I'm either
Family. It was just a word ... Could see its letters all strung together. But it was a symbol, too. And people thought they knew what it meant ... It was a thing everyone had an opinion about - that it was all you had when you didn't have anything else, that family was there, that blood was thicker than water, whatever. But when Nailer thought about it, most of these words and ideas just seemed like good excuses for people to behave badly and get away with it. Family wasn't more reliable than marriages or friendships ... maybe less ... The blood bond was nothing. It was the people that mattered. If they covered your back, and you covered theirs, then maybe that was worth calling family.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Family. It was just a
People only really live when they're about to die," he said. "Before then it's all a waste. You don't appreciate how good it is until you're really in the shit.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: People only really live when
She holds the remnants of slashed clothes around her, keeping her modesty. It's pitiable, really, that a creature so utterly owned clings to modesty.

"Why?" she asks again.

He shrugs again. "You needed help."

"No one helps a windup." Her voice is flat. "You are a fool." She pushes damp hair away from her face. A surreal stutter-stop motion, the genetic bits of her unkinking. Her smooth skin shines between the edges of her slashed blouse, the gentle promise of her breasts. What would she feel like? Her skin gleams, smooth and inviting.

She catches him staring. "Do you wish to use me?"

"No." he looks away, uneasy. "It's not necessary."

"I would not fight you," she says.

Anderson feels a sudden revulsion at the acquiescence in her voice. On another day, at another time, he probably would have taken her for the novelty. Thought nothing of it. But the fact that she expects so little fills him with distaste. He forces a smile. "Thank you. No."

She nods shortly. Looks out again at the humid night and the green glow of the street lamps. It's impossible to say if she is grateful or surprised, or if his decision even matters to her. However her mask might have slipped in the heat of terror and relief of escape, her thoughts are carefully locked away now.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: She holds the remnants of
Laws are confusing documents. They get in the way if justice.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Laws are confusing documents. They
The theater of operation built itself in Tool's mind.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: The theater of operation built
You will die."
"I guess. I don't know." She shook her head, trying to pick through her feelings. "I used to think I was alive just because I kept getting away. If someone didn't put a bullet in my head, I was winning. I was still breathing, right?" She looked at the blackened land around her, feeling tired and sad and alone. "But now I'm thinking it ain't like that. Now I'm thinking that once you got enough dead looking over your shoulder, you're dead anyway. Don't matter if you're still walking and talking, they weigh you down.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: You will die."I guess." title="Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: You will die."
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Blood is not destiny.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Blood is not destiny.
Short fiction seems more targeted - hand grenades of ideas, if you will. When they work, they hit, they explode, and you never forget them. Long fiction feels more like atmosphere: it's a lot smokier and less defined.
Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes: Short fiction seems more targeted
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